"Greek Art"

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Greece has a rich and varied artistic history, spanning some 4000 years and beginning in the Minoan prehistorical civilization, giving birth to Western classical art in the ancient period (and developing this during the Hellenistic Period), to taking in the influences of the East and the new religion of Christianity in the Byzantine period, continuing through the Renaissance with figures such as El Greco, absorbing Italian ideas in the Romanticist period (with the invigoration of the Greek Revolution), right up until the Modernist and Post-Modernist periods. In Greek mythology Zeus was ruler of both the Olympian gods and the human race. Sometimes he is portrayed as a just and merciful defender of the weak. At other times he appears to be passionate, inconstant, and vengeful. Apollo was the god of light and of youth and manly beauty. Apollo belvedere was also the god of prophesy and for a thousand years emperors and leaders came to the oracle of Delphi, housed in his temple, to hear prophesies which shaped the history of the Mediterranean world. Both these Gods are often used in Greek Art. One thing is for sure... mostly the Greek statutes are shown halfly dressed or completely naked.

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